Can we stop pretending that Elise Stefanik’s ascent is somehow mysterious?

But this isn’t really a mystery. Last week, we reported on research that suggests how Republican activists see “conservative” not in terms of adhering to small-government principles but, often, how closely legislators hew to Trump’s rhetoric. In 2016, researchers asked activists to evaluate how conservative various Republican senators were relative to one another. Senators who’d embraced Trump at the time, such as Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), saw boosts on how conservative they were viewed to be. Those who had critiqued Trump, like Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), were viewed as less conservative than their voting records would suggest.